Explained | Trump says he won’t be a dictator if he becomes president. American media, lawmakers say otherwise
Trump explainer
With less than a year left for the United States presidential elections and a possible rematch between former President Donald Trump and incumbent Joe Biden, the stakes for the upcoming polls are high, and they are about to get much higher.
If you have been following the American media recently and noticed the sudden spike in the number of warnings that a second Trump presidency could lead the US – which often seemingly lectures other countries about upholding democratic values – into a dictatorship, by journalists, expertsand lawmakers alike, you are not alone.
The twice-impeached former president who is currently the Republican frontrunner announced his bid for the White House late last year. Meanwhile, he has been busy keeping up with his many legal woes, campaigning for the upcoming elections, and of course, making controversial statements.
‘I won’t be a dictator…except on day one’
The former president making controversial statements is nothing new, but this time around he seemingly confirmed his plans to turn America into an autocracy, which Democrats and even some Republicans have been warning about for months now.
Over the past few days, several prominent American media outlets, including The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Atlantic have also sounded the alarm that a second Trump presidency could turn the US into a dictatorship.
The Republican frontrunner appeared in a town hall-style event hosted by Fox News, on Tuesday (Dec 5) before a friendly audience in the US state of Iowa where the party’s nominating contest kicks off next month.
Trump, during the interview, was asked twice by host Sean Hannity to deny that he would abuse power to seek revenge on political opponents if re-elected and unsurprisingly he did not.
“You are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked. To which Trump responded “No. No. Other than day one.”
The former president has faced growing Democratic criticism for his rhetoric which included him saying that he would target political rivals, while referring to them as “vermin”, if he wins a second term, for what he has repeatedly argued are politically motivated prosecutions against him.
On “day one” the Republican said he would use his presidential powers to close the southern border with Mexico and expand oil drilling.
Hannity also asked Trump if he “in any way” had “any plans whatsoever, if reelected president, to abuse power, to break the law to use the government to go after people.” To which replied by saying “You mean like they’re using right now?”
Ironically, the former president’s remarks came a month before January 6. On that day, in 2021, Trump, who served as the president between 2017 and 2021, refused to concede that he lost the 2020 election to Biden, and spread false claims that the election was stolen from him.
The claims and conspiracy fuelled a deadly insurrection by Trump supporters at the US Capitol who even threatened to “hang” former Vice President Mike Pence to stop him from certifying Biden’s win.
The Democrat White House hopeful’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez was quick to respond and released a statement as soon as the event finished.
“Donald Trump has been telling us exactly what he will do if he’s re-elected and tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one. Americans should believe him.”
The incumbent president has repeatedly warned that his predecessor is a threat to democracy and if he wins a second term, it could lead to an unprecedented and dangerous age of American autocracy.
During a campaign event, Biden even cited Trump as one of the reasons he is running for office at the age of 81. “If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running. But we cannot let him win.”
He also said the former president’s increasingly violent language on the campaign trail including the use of the word “vermin” echoed the language used in Nazi Germany.
‘Sleepwalking into dictatorship’
While scathing remarks from political opponents are unsurprising, people from Trump’s party have raised similar concerns.
Liz Cheney, who once served as chair of the House Republican Conference and whose opposition to Trump’s presidency alienated her from her party members, said she would prefer if Democrats won in the 2024 elections as she feared the US was “sleepwalking into dictatorship”.
In an interview with CBS, Cheney suggested that since the Republican congressional majority would blindly follow Trump, his second term in office would be a tangible “threat” to American democracy.
She also said how the US was “sort of sleepwalking into dictatorship” with Trump emerging as the Republican frontrunner and a clear favourite for the party’s presidential nomination.
Cheney, who also chaired the congressional probe of the attack on the Capitol, said a Trump dictatorship is a “very real threat” if he wins the upcoming election. So real that she is weighing a third-party presidential run of her own to try to stop him.
What about American media?
In an article written in The WaPo titled, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending,” conservative commentator Robert Kagan compared the former president to the power-grabbing Roman emperor Julius Caesar
He also warned that if he came to it, not even the US Constitution and Supreme Court could prevent Trump being “president for life” if he wanted.
Meanwhile, the NYT, in a recent analysis wrote that a second term could unleash a “darker President Trump” worse than what he was during his first term.
The former president has repeatedly “spoken admiringly of autocrats for decades” and would likely follow their example, including employing loyalists in civil services and using the Justice Department to crack down on opponents, the Times noted.
The NYT also claimed that Trump and his allies are finding ways to use a radical interpretation of “unitary executive theory” that grants unprecedented power to the president arguing that he holds total control of the executive branch, and rejects constraints on presidential power.
The Atlantic magazine dedicated its entire January-February 2024 issue to what a Trump presidency would look like, with an editor’s note aptly titled, “A Warning.”
The special edition of the monthly magazine titled “If Trump Wins” includes two dozen articles about how the twice-impeached, four-time indicted Republican who is also facing 90 criminal charges, including some for attempting to overturn the results of the last election, would weaponise the government.
“We can’t participate in the normalization of Donald Trump,” Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic told CNN. Goldberg also spoke about how he believes “that a second Trump term poses a threat to the existence of America as we know it.”
An American autocracy?
From US lawmakers to the American media, together they paint a bleak picture of an angrier yet disciplined and organised Trump who would seek vengeance on his perceived enemies and try to stay in power beyond the two-term limit.
There was “no question” Trump would try to stay in office beyond 2028, said Cheney, calling the January 6 riot a mere “practice run”.
(With inputs from agencies)